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Early Access
Early Access, or EA, is the funding and development model for games of Larian Studios.
Early Access is an unfinished and unpolished version of the main game. Players can help the development of the game by providing feedback or reporting bugs.
Larian Studios decided to follow this model for Baldur’s Gate 3 after seeing its continuous successes in their previous games: Divinty: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2.
The first released Early Access version of Baldur's Gate 3 was on October 6th, 2020. Since then, Larian has released multiple patches fixing bugs and changing or adding content depending on the users' feedbacks. Many playable Classes, Races, Companions and Quests are not availble in Early Access.
Early Access version of Baldur's Gate 3 costs 60 US Dollars and will remain the same price on full release. Early Access buyers do not have to pay for the game again on full release.
Updates of Early Access consist of Hotfixes; which are updates that focus on fixing a certain amount of usually game-breaking bugs or crashes, and Patches; which are updates usually surpassing 50 GB in size and added or vastly modified content and improved stability.
Timeline
Main page: Patch notes
2020
- February
27/2: Gameplay reveal at PAX East.
- August
25/8: Early Access is announced to be launched on September 30th.
- October
6/10: Early Acess is launched.
7/10: Hotfix #1 is released.
8/10: Hotfix #2 is released.
9/10: Hotfix #3 is released.
13/10: Patch 1 is released.
27/10: Patch 2 is released.
30/10: Hotfix #4 is released.
- December
2/12: Patch 3, first in a line of tens of GBs in size and save-breaking Patches is released. This patch focused on stability and added options for pacifist players.
8/12: Hotfix #5 is released.
15/12: Hotfix #6 is released.
2021
- February
25/2: Patch 4 is releasead. Druid class is added alongisde an improvement on cinematics, stability and multiple Quality of Life features.
26/2: Hotfix #7 is released.
- March
4/3: Hotfix #8 is released.
23/3: Hotfix #9 is released.
- April
15/4: Hotfix #10 is released.
- May
12/5: Hotfix #11 is released.
- July
15/7: Patch 5 is released. A patch bigger in size than the fourth one, this update improved and changed multiple systems users sent feedback about: mainly the camping and dice rolling system, besides adding point-and-click barks, background goals and cinematics.
22/7: Hotfix #12 is released.
- August
5/8: Hotfix #13 is released.
24/8: Hotfix #14 is released.
31/8: Hotfix #15 is released.
- October
6/10: Early Access becomes one year old.
14/10: Patch 6 is released. A patch bigger in size than the fifth one, this update added the Sorcerer class alongside the Grymforge region and a big graphical update. Also, the typical bug-fixing and stability improvements.
21/10: Hotfix #16 is released.
28/10: Hotfix #17 is released.
- November
16/11: Hotfix #18 is released.
- December
2/12: Hotfix #19 is released.
2022
- February
15/2 Patch 7 is released. It adds the Barbarian class, along with Improvised Weapons, UI redesign, over 700 improved cinematics, and more.